DataDome, whose AI-powered SaaS solution protects online businesses against bot-driven fraud, recently announced that it has secured a $35M Series B investment. The funding round was led by New York-based Elephant, with participation from DataDome's existing investor ISAI.
We sat down with Benjamin Fabre, DataDome's co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, to talk more about the company, its recent series B funding round, how e-commerce fraud has changed, and the plans for the company in 2021.
What is the company's mission?
DataDome's mission is to free the web from fraudulent traffic, so that sensitive data remains safe and online platforms can perform at optimum speed.
What problems do you aim to solve and how?
Bad bots and online fraud can cripple digital businesses, putting data security and the customer experience at risk. Indeed, bad bots use up a substantial part of a digital business' infrastructure resources, resulting in slow downs, and even downtime, which negatively impacts the user experience, and by extension, conversion rates and revenues.
Every step along the customer journey needs protecting:
Homepages & product pages -- these are primarily targeted by scraping bots for competitive intelligence (i.e., competitors stealing proprietary data or sensitive pricing information)
Login sections -- these are at risk of credential stuffing attacks and account takeover attempts, which would expose users' personal information and create reputational and legal hazard for the business.
"Add to Cart" funnels -- these are targeted by bots specialised in scalping and inventory hoarding in order to snatch all available inventory to make it unavailable during hype sales.
Checkout - one of the most sensitive endpoints, where payment fraud occurs. Bots will target this endpoint in order to confirm the accuracy of stolen credit card information, find out the 3 or 4 digit validation number of credit cards by trying out all possible combinations, use stolen credit cards to purchase goods, etc.
We help protect businesses (and their bottom lines) by detecting and blocking the most advanced bot attacks in real time. DataDome detects, on average, a new bad bot every millisecond. Our AI-powered bot detection engine detects, classifies and blocks all automated threats in real time, empowering our customers to focus on growing their business, instead of looking over their shoulders and worrying about bot attacks.
How has e-commerce fraud changed over the past year?
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the retail industry for good. Both retailers and consumers now increasingly rely on e-commerce to earn money or buy goods and services. 62% of US adults bought something online for the first time as a direct result of the pandemic. And where there's money, there are bots.
DataDome saw a 47% increase in bot attacks against retailers and their e-commerce platforms over the last six months. A successful bot attack can lead to online fraud, poor website performance, leaked customer data, and worse. Despite these dangers, 27% to 41% of retailers are still unprotected against bad bots.
Congrats on the funding. What do you plan to do with the investment?
Thank you! The funding will enable us to aggressively scale our global sales, marketing, delivery and R&D teams, and puts us on track to double our Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and customer base -- ultimately helping to make the web a safer place for digital commerce businesses.
What aspirations do you have for the company in 2021?
We fully expect to double our ARR and customer base, and significantly grow our number of employees; right now we have 70 employees across our three headquarters (New York, Paris, Singapore) and aim to have a total of 120 by the end of the year.
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